[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[August 28, 1999]
[Pages 1473-1475]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Saxophone Club Reception in East Hampton
August 28, 1999

    Thank you. First of all, I would like to thank Wyclef and the band; they were magnificent. Weren't they 
unbelievable? Let's give them another hand. [Applause]
    You were up there doing your thing, and I was sitting here thinking 
about what I was going to say. And I couldn't concentrate for wishing I 
was 25 and out there again. [Laughter] You were terrific! Thank you so 
much.
    I want to thank all the leaders of the Democratic Party who are 
here. I want to thank Judith Hope. You know, 
people always say, ``Well, you know, Hillary, is she going to run, is she not going to run?'' Well, 
she spent all these years in Arkansas. Judith Hope was 20 years old 
before she ever left Arkansas; we're just following her lead. [Laughter]
    I want to say, also, how very grateful I am to all the Members of 
Congress--Senator Lautenberg, Senator 
Torricelli, Congresswoman 
McCarthy, and Congressman Forbes--for being here. I think it says a lot about Long 
Island

[[Page 1474]]

and the State of New York that the two most prominent people to switch 
from the Republican to the Democratic Party in the last couple of years 
are Carolyn McCarthy and Michael Forbes from Long Island.
    One switched--you know, we're having a good time tonight, so nobody 
wants to talk too much about issues, but Michael Forbes switched because the Republicans are killing the Patients' 
Bill of Rights, and patients are getting the shaft out there in the 
health care system all across America; and because they have a budget 
and tax plan which will cut education spending when we should be 
investing more in the education of our children.
    And Carolyn McCarthy quit because after 
her intense personal agony, she just got sick and tired of their 
leadership killing commonsense things like closing the loophole that 
stops us from doing background checks when criminals buy guns at gun 
shows and flea markets, and it's wrong.
    And I say that to make this point. I am so profoundly grateful to 
the people of New York for being so good to me and Hillary and to Al and 
Tipper Gore and two Presidential elections and one magnificent 
convention and one very bracing primary in 1992. The people of New York 
have been good to me and have made it possible for us to do what we have 
worked hard to do in the last 6\1/2\ years.
    And I want you to think about just a couple of things, especially 
the younger people here. I'm not running for anything. [Laughter] Kind 
of hate it, actually. I wish I still could, but I can't. [Laughter] But 
I have worked all my life to try to bring people together and move 
people forward and bring out the best in people. And when New York took 
a chance on me and Al Gore in 1992, that's exactly what it was. We said, 
``Vote for us. We'll take the country in a different direction. We'll 
ask the Democrats to be for fiscal responsibility and bringing the crime 
rate down and changing the welfare culture and having a humane trade 
policy. And we'll ask the Republicans to stop badmouthing the Government 
and dividing people by race and gender and sexual orientation and other 
things. And we'll try to bring this country together and move it 
forward.''
    But you couldn't know. You took a chance. And we've been down there 
working for 6\1/2\ years now. And the first point I want to make is, 
you're not taking a chance anymore. You know we have the longest 
peacetime expansion in history, the highest homeownership in history, 
the lowest minority unemployment in history, the lowest crime rate in 26 
years, the lowest welfare rolls in 32 years. This country is moving in 
the right direction. You took a chance, and you were right. And the 
Democratic Party has moved this country forward.
    The second thing I want to say is--even more important--is that we 
just made the country work again. But there are huge questions facing 
the 21st century. The number of people over 65 will double in 30 years. 
We already have the largest number of children in school in history--for 
the first time, a group bigger than the baby boomers, and they are far, 
far more diverse; many more of their first languages are not English. 
And that is a godsend in this great, rich, textured global economy.
    But it means we have no business, at this point of maximum 
prosperity and confidence, walking away from the big challenges. How are 
we going to save Medicare and Social Security so that the children of 
the baby boomers don't have to support their parents, and can support 
their kids instead? How are we going to give every child in this country 
a world-class education? How are we going to bring the economic 
opportunity that so many of you have enjoyed to all the little towns in 
upstate New York and all the neighborhoods in the inner cities and the 
Mississippi Delta and the Indian reservations, to people who haven't had 
it?
    And before we go back to the failed economic policies of the past 
and pass a tax cut that will force us to cut education and cut the 
environment and cut our investment in the future and put us right back 
in the hole we were in and raise your interest rates and take your tax 
cut away from you, let's get this country out of debt for the first time 
since 1835 and give the children here a generation of economic 
prosperity.
    Now, these are big issues. But it's not like 1992. We're not asking 
you to take us on faith anymore. We're asking you to go with what you 
know works, in your mind and in your heart.
    And the last point I want to make is this. If I could wave a magic 
wand and get America just to do one thing--just one--it wouldn't even be 
all the things I just said. I would have the American people lay down 
their hatreds and their division, their anger and their pettiness, their 
legitimate grievances and their phonied-

[[Page 1475]]

up gripes. I would have this country no longer divided by race, by 
religion, by sexual orientation, by politics, by region.
    You know, most of the people I've known in public service over 25 
years, now, have been honest, decent, hardworking people who tried to do 
what they thought was right. And this is crazy, what the leadership of 
the Congress has tried to do in Washington these last few years--trying 
to keep the country in a turmoil all the time, all torn up and upset, 
telling everybody how terrible their enemies are, trying to make sure 
you could divide the population up, first one way and then another, and 
then being in the grip of these interest groups that are keeping us from 
becoming one community, by doing things we know we ought to do in 
education, on the Patients' Bill of Rights, on sensible gun control 
measures. This is wrong.
    You think of all the time I have spent trying to make peace in the 
Middle East, end tribal wars in Africa, stop the slaughter in Bosnia and 
Kosovo, bring peace to Northern Ireland--all these things. What is at 
the root of all this? People believing that the only way they can get 
and keep power is to turn people against one another, to harden their 
hearts.
    And I'm telling you, the Democratic Party stands for opportunity, 
for facing the big challenges of the future, and for one American 
community where we are united by our common humanity.
    So I am grateful for all those who have joined our cause, because 
they share our values and our ideas, and they know the record is 
incontestable. Congressman Forbes took a 
big chance doing what he did. I wish he had done it a year or 2 earlier. 
[Laughter] But I was raised a Southern Baptist; we believe in deathbed 
conversions, and he is a long way from the deathbed. So you all give him 
another hand for doing the right thing. [Applause] Congresswoman Carolyn 
McCarthy has changed this country for the 
better and immeasurably enriched our party in the Congress because of 
what she did.
    And I will say, as I've said many times, of all the hundreds, 
indeed, all the thousands of the people I have known, the woman I have shared the last--well, since we met--27 
years with is the most passionate, the most committed, the most able, 
the most consistent public citizen I have ever known, and New York would 
do well to send her to the United States Senate.
    So I thank you. I'm not running for anything. [Laughter] I'm going 
to work hard for you for another year and a half. I am grateful that 
this country is in the shape it's in. I am proud of the friendship and 
partnership I've shared with Al Gore, the 
friendship and partnerships I've shared with the Members of Congress. 
But most important, I am humble and grateful for the kind of support 
that the people of New York have given. And all I ask you in return is 
to keep on going in this direction. You were right when you took a 
chance on us in 1992. You were right when you ratified what we were 
doing in 1996. You were right to send Chuck Schumer to the Senate in 1998. Just stay on; keep leading America 
into a new century.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 11 p.m. in a hangar at the Executive 
Terminal at East Hampton Airport. In his remarks, he referred to 
entertainer Wyclef Jean; and New York State Democratic Party Chair 
Judith Hope.